Human capital accumulation, income protection insurance and poverty reduction in the least developed countries. (8th October 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Liu, Weiguang
• Is Part Of: Australian economic papers. Volume 60:Number 2(2021)
• Page Start: 361
• Page End: 372
• Publication Date: 2020-10-08
• Subjects: coverage -- human capital -- income protection insurance -- poverty reduction; Economics -- Periodicals; Australia -- Economic conditions -- Periodicals; 330
• DOI: 10.1111/1467-8454.12208
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0004-900X

Abstract

Abstract: Insurance is very important for the least developed countries. In an overlapping generation framework without saving, we analysed the effect of a special form of health insurance: Income protection insurance (IPI). We clarified how IPI coverage influences human capital accumulation through education investment under certain economic conditions. We have three main findings: (a) Under the assumption that an economy has the potential to escape from the poverty trap, we find that if individuals can choose IPI coverage freely, IPI will not help the economy escape from poverty; (b) if we can lower the coverage to an optimal level, IPI will help the economy escape from poverty; and (c) the coverage preferred by individuals will increase with unhealthy probability, decrease with education efficiency and be independent of the discount rate, and the growth‐optimal coverage proportion will increase with the discount rate and decrease with education efficiency. The paper provides some policy implications for reducing poverty in some of the least developed countries through insurance tools.